


Adjournment

by blythely



Series: Corridors of Power [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, British Politics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:06:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythely/pseuds/blythely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>"You want to know my political views, don't you? Why haven't you asked me?–Though I can't answer in one word. First of all, I haven't changed much as I've got older. I've learned a bit more, that's all... As I told you, I've never been dedicated to politics as a real politician is. But I've always been interested. I think I know something about power. I've watched it in various manifestations, almost all my life. And you can't know something about power without being suspicious of it."</p>
  <p>– <i>Corridors of Power</i>, C.P. Snow</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
**HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT  
Unidentifiable mid-December, 2006**  
  
  
Draco was a tiny miniscule insignificant little bit tipsy. "Nothing that a brisk taxi to the nearest walk–oomph!"  
  
"Shh," Harry said, overloud, and Draco found himself pulled past the velveteen rope blocking off the public area and into a murky arterial of the Lobby. Harry, whose idea it must have been to stay at Bellamy's past three, was also perhaps quite plastered, his cheeks flushing.   
  
"Rosily," Draco said to himself, liking the sound.  
  
"You are so very strange." Harry leaned back against the flocked wallpaper, balancing on his shoulderblades and heels. "Show me the Lords Chamber, go on."  
  
A private tour? Draco ran his thumb over his chin, considering both the question and whether to pluck the piece of tinsel from where it nested in Harry's hair. "You show me yours first."   
  
"Got something to hide? Or you just a bit embarrassed 'cos it's smaller?"   
  
"Not at all." Draco grinned. "Can't have you feeling demoralised at how impressively...  _hung_  it is, though."   
  
Harry snorted, unfolded himself from his slouch and led them down a narrow clerical corridor. He'd cast some sort of spell that illuminated the lights dimly, salutory brightening as they walked past. It was very charming, as was the view Draco had of Harry from behind. "Mine's got  _leather_ , you know." He looked back at Draco amusedly. "Are you–"  
  
"Velvet," Draco countered, "A big squashy velvet cushion in the middle of the room."  
  
"Toffs." Harry pushed open a door marked 'Ways And Means'. "Always have to go one better. Through here."   
  
Draco peered into the doorway. It looked like a Vanishing Cabinet.  
  
"Vanishing wotsit." Harry cheerfully brandished his wand. "In you go!"  
  
Somehow Draco had envisioned his career ending in a slightly more dignified and definitely less cabinet-y way. This was a low blow. "Er," he started, but then Harry shoved him bodily in the cupboard and stepped in after him.  
  
"Don't be daft, Malfoy, if I wanted to do you in I'd think of something vastly more creative." Harry's smirk disappeared into black as he clicked the door shut.  
  
"I'd also make sure I could  _see_  you, if I were–" Harry continued, so close that Draco was certain his own swallow must be audible "–oh, where the bloody hell is it? Stay still." Draco did as he was told; it was dark, Draco was sleepy, and Harry's body warmth against his side was like a stupefying spell all of its own.  
  
Harry rapped knuckles at the backboard behind Draco, shifting distractingly. "No closet jokes," he murmured.   
  
Draco twitched. "Wouldn't dream of it." Sounds of rattling at a handle.  
  
"Aha." The door popped open, and there in front of them were the green leather benches of the House of Commons.

 

*

  
  
"Clever," Draco conceded. Perhaps Harry had read more of that Magical Westminster book than he'd let on, although a certain disdain for locked doors was part of the Standard Potter Operating Procedure. Harry, who had yanked the handle  _off_  the door, gestured out to the Chamber and motioned Draco in front of him. Draco tripped out of what appeared to be a wall panel, loosening his collar against the atmosphere.   
  
He was habituated to it in the Lords, this tangible concentration of the will to power. A manifest, impoverished magic, it was hungry for focus, for something or someone to wield it. In the Lords Draco recognised it as vibrant and companionable, but it was different in this room; stickier, more cloying, more restless.   
  
Draco waggled his fingers and thought–inexplicably–about plums. A Black Doris smacked neatly into his palm. "Look at that," he nodded at Harry. "I wanted a plum and your House of Commons gave me an plum." It was tart and perfectly fleshy when he bit into it. "Bet that doesn't happen too often."  
  
"What? Don't really like stonefruit. It's unnatural." Harry had shoved his hands in his pockets and was trying not to be obvious about watching Draco eat.  
  
Draco sucked hard on the plum stone, then aimed it at one of the snuff-boxes by the door. Score. "Ten points to the landed gentry."  
  
"Ha bloody ha." Harry picked up the silver mace resting on the Clerk's table and flung himself into what Draco supposed was the Speaker's chair. Draco wandered about a bit, testing the seats–the leather worn shiny-smooth by political bottoms–and peering under the benches, but it was bloody distracting with Harry watching him and running his fingers back and forth along the engraved silver stem of the mace.  
  
Draco stopped at the Speaker's chair and kicked at the base of the carved throne. Of course, being solid oak, the chair didn't move. "Stop that."   
  
Harry tipped his head back; his grin looked like a frown in his upside-down face. Draco looked at him closely, surprised to see a few strands of grey in Harry's dark hair. He didn't feel drunk anymore, just heady.   
  
"Stop what, Draco?"   
  
"Fondling that... nob."  
  
Harry laughed, but he didn't blink, and he didn't stop his idle stroking. "Why?"  
  
"You'll call up the unseemly ghosts of backbenchers past." Draco stepped back before he really did ruffle Harry's hair and broke his gaze away to glance at the centre space. The hotel restaurant carpet was divided by tatty yellow borders. "What are the lines on the floor?"   
  
"Observe!" Harry sprung up from the chair, mace in hand and playful, and leaned across the bench. He threw something to Draco, a cheap plastic pen emblazoned with the portcullis logo. "Make yourself a sword."  
  
Draco snickered. "Anything in particular?"  
  
"Oh  _I_  don't know," Harry shrugged airily, "Middle-class, me. The only sword I ever used was Godric Gryffindor's–"  
  
"Showoff."   
  
Harry grinned, and leaned his weight on the mace like a jaunty umbrella. "You will notice, Lord Malfoy, that these lines are–come here, stand on that side–just more than two sword lengths apart."  
  
Draco looked up from his newly-transfigured pen, which was now a silver rapier with a wire hilt. He swung it up, watching the metal embellish itself with engraving and tracery, and felt rather pleased with himself. The feel of the weapon in his hand wasn't quite as thrilling as aiming a wand at someone's heart, but it was a satisfying second.  
  
Oh, they hadn't done this for  _years_. He caught Harry's eye, and the look they shared felt momentous and childish all at once, an acerbic sort of delight in just how far they had–and hadn't–come.  
  
Without looking away, Draco extended his arm, shifting but resolute when Harry engaged his sword with the business end of the mace.   
  
"This is not exactly an equally matched competition," Draco said.   
  
Harry nodded slowly. "That's very true."  
  
Draco's Christmas-party-addled brain was not up to sorting out that one. He'd think on it later.  
  
"So anyhow," Harry tilted his head at the floor, "the lines are meant to prevent rowdy duels in the chamber. Speak from in front of them and you've overstepped your mark." His arm wavered slightly. That mace had to be awkward, the embellished crown making it top-heavy. Draco nudged at it with the tip of his blade, forcing Harry to hold the weight up higher. The mace jittered with his effort. "Possibly your average MP used to be a bit smaller–ow." He glared at Draco and dropped his arm, rubbing at his shoulder.  
  
"Put that bloody thing back where you found it," Draco laughed. "Thank you for the history lesson."   
  
Harry looked sulky. "I think it's a good story."  
  
"I was being genuine, you idiot." Draco swished the blade at his side thoughtfully. "Think I'll keep this as a souvenir."  
  
"Tour's over," Harry said, "Get back in the closet."

* * *

  
 **  
CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE  
THE EMBANKMENT, WC2  
Tuesday 16th January, 2007 10:07 am**  
  
  
Arctic didn't begin to describe the breeze off the river. The icy wind hurt Draco's  _eyeballs_. He squinted against the grey expanse of the Thames as a Zabini-shaped form exited from the base of the Needle. "I don't know how you can abide that bloody portkey malarkey."  
  
Blaise slapped the haunch of the sphinx and it moved its paw to let him collect his briefcase. "Takes me twenty minutes to get to the Place de la Concorde this way, and nineteen of that is Customs–fuck, it's cold, what kind of crap warming charm is that?"   
  
Draco had taken the Needle Network to New York once and spent most of his tour of the UN trying to keep the resultant nausea down. "I'll stick to the Eurostar, thanks."   
  
They set off down the Embankment towards Whitehall. Blaise was jubilant underneath his mockery of the French publishing house who had contracted his book. "They'd read the precis piece I wrote for the Statesman and fixated on a throwaway line about the reality television model of public life."  
  
Draco smirked but kept his comments about Blaise's avid Big Brother fixation to himself. "And?"  
  
"So they're convinced this is the next Freakonomics and want the whole idea spun out. It's ludicrous."  
  
"Of course you'll do it."  
  
"We're none of us above exploiting common stupidity for fame and fortune. What shall I call it?"  
  
"Britain's Next Top Prime Minister?"  
  
"I thought maybe 'Political Idol'."  
  
"Hmm." Draco decided to capitalise on Blaise's convivial mood and decided to pop the question straightaway. The reaction was unsurprisingly difficult.  
  
"I find it hard to believe you are unable to find an aspirational young thing to open your mail and answer your phones."  
  
Draco developed a keen interest in the new scaffolding around Nelson's Column. "I'm particular."  
  
"Did you even interview anyone from that pile of resumes I left for you? There were plenty of capable–actually, plenty of capable and  _pretty_ –candidates there."  
  
The truth was that Draco had desultorily flicked through the top of the pile before dumping them all in the rubbish bin and following the whole sordid lot up with a banishing charm. He didn't want an efficient piece of eye-candy pretending to run his office. He wanted someone who could match him for scotch, someone who disagreed with him about the Schilling, someone who still despised the Weasleys. He wanted Blaise back.  
  
"You're bloody useless, you know that? For one thing, there's an unemployment crisis right now, and you should be impressing the powers that be with your willingness to hire some Ministry higher-ups over-educated offspring. For another thing, you needn't have hardly anything to do with them, because as I can recount from personal experience, you don't exactly have a diary full of commitments–"  
  
"See, this is exactly why you must come back. I need to be bossed about."   
  
"You don't take one single bit of notice of what I tell you!"  
  
"Please?"  
  
"Oh, Draco." They had stopped at the corner of Northumberland. Blaise gave him a look that was treacherously pitying. "You really are terribly sweet, but if you're lonely I can't fix that for you."  
  
"I didn't say that," Draco snapped. "I just offered you an excellent, well-resourced office in which to write this book of yours." He sniffed and turned to keep walking. "I'm merely looking out for your well-being."

* * *

  
 **  
THE LORDS CHAMBER  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT   
Thursday 8th February **  
  
  
Unstarred Questions. The standard back and forth played out on the floor with nothing more riveting than the Lord Brabazon of Tara assenting to a new clock for the Queen's Room. Draco had one ear to the chamber while he scowled at the parchment from Gringotts and his printout from Barclays.   
  
Banking was a special branch of Dark Magic.  
  
Not one that Draco particularly cared for, either; one had to deal with scuttling, gormless goblins and their endless bureaucratic gatekeeping, and the wizarding lot were no better.  
  
No proper aristocrat examined the world of finance too closely. Draco was no different, but he had an extra level of distaste for the retro-colonialist acquisition methods of Gringotts. Curse-breakers? Please. One couldn't, however, kick up too much of a fuss about the spoils of Empire when one's own nest egg derived from the sale of property and objet d'art most definitely  _not_ acquired through entirely humanitarian channels, so Draco shut up while the  _Guardian_  classes tut-tutted about the Elgin Marbles.  
  
Momentarily distracted by the Baroness Byford's question about gangmasters–which, it turned out, were not so much doyens of organised crime but people who employed students to pick their apples–Draco wondered if Boris had an accountant that he might borrow. Theodore's stepmother had been the Malfoy financial adviser, once upon a time. Theo had shared her bizarre fondness for sums, but that was of no use to dwell upon. It stung enough that the parchment had to be delivered by personal owl–Laertes was capricious and wary and his markings were like freckles, and Draco suspected Theo left him the Nott owl in the same sharp-edged manner of all his gifts.  
  
Draco turned back to the lists of figures, scrutinising the amounts transferred between the accounts and jotting down anything remarkable that appeared as outgoings. How could anyone be expected to maintain a memory of personal expenditure four years after the fact? About the only thing that popped out immediately was the twenty thousand that made the difference between the Lexus and his DB7, and the only body that profitted from that was Aston Martin.  
  
The press were calling it "cash for honours", as if one merely wrote a cheque and took one's seat in the House. An aide at Number 10 and Blair's tennis partner had been collared by the police; Draco had considered carefully with whom he'd strolled around the links at Brands Hatch, but thought he'd not lost a round to anyone of particular influence.   
  
It wouldn't hurt to be careful. Draco folded the bank statements and returned his attention to the chamber, whereupon he was intrigued to find that, according to Her Majesty's Government, over nearly two thousand anti-social behaviour orders had been issued in the last six months, yet not a single one to John Prescott.

* * *

  
 **  
THE RAYMOND AND BEVERLY SACKLER GALLERIES  
BRITISH MUSEUM, WC1  
Thursday 15th March, 1:37 pm**  
  
For a weekday, the Museum was fairly quiet. Only one coach outside when Draco had greeted the lions, and very few school parties running amok around the Rosetta Stone. Not so many people that standing under the tessellated glass of the Great Court didn't feel like a small part of the sublime, but just enough human presence to keep the half-ghosts and dry old magics under control.  
  
As always, the Near Eastern rooms were buzzing. Mummies, mummies. The muggles always went stupid over the mummies, as if the whole process of yanking out a brain through the nose and wrapping a body in old bandages was somehow the greatest achievement of Ancient Egypt. It put Draco in a petulant mood to see the crowds cooing around some rotting carcass when less vulgar treasures were all around them.  
  
One young girl had her face pressed to the glass of a case full of seals and scarabs, resolutely ignoring the tugs and yells of her siblings. Draco thought she might have some promise, so he used a replica charm on a chalcedony barrel seal and let it drop into her pocket.  
  
"Her parents'll probably think she nicked that." Harry shook his head. "More harm than good, you are."  
  
"It'll be a formative experience," said Draco dismissively, annoyed at his slip. Harry had appeared out of nowhere from behind a statue of Nimrod.  
  
"Uncharacteristically generous to a random muggle, though." They headed down the Mesopotamia corridor to where the gaggle was less goosey.   
  
Draco brushed down the front of his jacket. "Excuse me, I just passed a board resolution to make even more of this great treasure-chest of an institution freely available to the daytrippers from Skegness, so there'll be no aspersions about Malfoy generosity, if you please–no, this way, the Sumerian rooms."  
  
Harry frowned. "The committee meeting's at two. Where are we going?"  
  
" _Public_  funding board is at two. I want to show you something brilliant." Draco steered Harry by the arm to a small case where a row of miniature clay tablets sat, nondescript among the four thousand year old mercantile weights and domestic bowls. He pointed to the smallest tablet, completely covered in an indecipherable, close-packed script. It sat next to a leather pouch, half-disintegrated; the description label indicated the pouch was worn to carry the tablet around the neck. "Look, the last one." He looked at Harry to see his reaction, but Harry was staring at him instead, his mouth open.   
  
It wasn't a terribly flattering look, but it did have a singular appeal. Draco observed the shiny details until Harry spoke:  
  
"You're on the  _donors_  board?"  
  
Incredulity was fine, really. Draco hadn't been brought up to deal with outlandish displays of appreciation. "You don't think I joined the Museums Select Committee because I had a few spare afternoons, did you?"  
  
"I–Yes! That's exactly what I thought. You know. You have tasteful Chinese vases in your office." Harry waved his hands about in the language of sheepishness. "And Boris. I thought he'd detailed you off on his Shadow Culture portfolio, you know–"  
  
Draco laughed. "You thought Boris was outsourcing to me? That's kind of hilarious."  
  
"It's just... surprising."  
  
"I long to hear your motive for preserving the nation's treasures, then, given that altruism is a new one to you."  
  
Apparently the reason was obvious, the way that Harry raised his eyebrows. "I like to keep an eye on what artefacts surface. Stupid Ministry decision to merge the collections here without proper monitoring."  
  
Bless. Harry was still mucking in after all this time. Draco found that thought quite comforting. "You might just have the museum's acquisition reports sent to you every quarter instead."  
  
"Hmm." Harry cut his glance to the side. "I really like the restaurant here?"  
  
Draco pressed his lips together to stop a smile escaping. Seemed he wasn't the only one uncomfortable intersecting meaningfully with the charity sector. "Airy dismissal is  _my_  thing, Harry, it doesn't really work when you look earnest and determined."  
  
"–uh, so, anyway, you were saying about this thing..." Adjusting his glasses with careful precision, Harry peered into the case in front of them, reading the label. "... water spell!"   
  
" _Deliquescere_ ," said Draco, looking about as the glass dissolved. As always, the Abyssinian and Sumerian empires got no love: there was no-one else near their case. He reached down and pressed his fingers into the hollow in the middle of the tablet. Immediately, the incisions that made up the cuneiform script began to move, marshalling into a crude outline of the room, then into a facsimile of the museum itself with its round Reading Room in the middle; finally, they stilled into a sketch of the surrounding neighbourhood. A swirl of vee-shapes swung from the museum's position up to one corner of the tablet, a large square outline, and hovered about the centre.  
  
Draco spelled the glass back and watched the script scurry back to its original position. "Russell Square fountain," he mused. "Last time it pointed to the ground floor mens toilets."  
  
Harry glanced up at Draco, clearly taken. "I do love a clever map charm," he said, almost wistful. "Can't believe that it still works, after all this time."  
  
"Probably took a year to construct," Draco said. "Not like what we do–a quick flick, disposable spells, nothing permanent."  
  
Harry snickered, turning Draco's wrist to look at his watch. "We'd better go: it's nearly two. And it's progress, Draco. You'd be the first to complain if you had to build up a  _Lumos_  from light wavelengths and heat insulation and... whatever else you need."  
  
"I have an appreciation for a well put-together bit of magic," Draco eyed Harry, "is that a new suit?"

* * *

  
 **  
Rm. 407  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT (LORDS)  
Wednesday 25th April, 2:23 pm**  
  
  
"Hola?" Blaise was in Seville.  
  
"Don't practise your Eurotrash on me." Draco pushed his fork into the soft peach of his  _hakuto_  and took a mouthful. The Japanese confectionery on Piccadilly was deadly. "Learn Japanese. Then you can come to Minamoto and order me these squishy sherbet things–"  
  
" _Chingate_ , baby," laughed Blaise. He became so mellow in the Costas; Draco thought it was the sangria. "Are you done yet?"  
  
"Recess is still a number of weeks away. Although with all this dilly-dallying from Blair we could have a no-confidence vote tomorrow." The thought of the summer prorogation was making Draco feel strangely bereft, but the loans scandal was still nagging at him. He hadn't thwarted Potter's Private Bill to trip up on that. Two months of quiet research made him realise (a) how much he'd taken Boris's advice to heart ("Politics is now, boy, you can sort out documents when they send the bailiff") and (b) that Blaise considered Basque to be an acceptable basis for his filing system. ETA separatist Basque, at that.  
  
Blaise was talking: "Can't chat now, but come down at the weekend? There's an intercontinental floo point at the Alhambra."  
  
Draco wrinkled his nose and pushed his plate across the newspaper on his desk. "Too many Spaniards." Time to bite the bezoar. "Blaise, have–"  
  
"There's more Spanish people in  _London_  in spring. Don't be morose. We'll take you to Gibraltar, they have an M&S, you'll feel right at home–"  
  
"Shh. Have I given anyone large sums of money in the form of party donations?"  
  
A sigh.   
  
"What? Well?"  
  
"Draco, I was just about to go and fuck my wife. Can't this wait?"  
  
"Fine." Draco hung up. It was only early afternoon, for pity's sake. The Mediterranean climate turned everyone into savages.

* * *

  
 **  
THE ALBANY  
PICCADILLY, SW1  
Thursday 3rd May, 12:07am**  
  
  
The ring of the telephone gave Draco such a start that he dropped Baroness James' last in the bath. He fished it out reluctantly: the mystery plot was lacking twistiness and a bit of water damage could only help. Getting up suddenly–and the sauna-like temperature–made his head spin, and he stared stupidly at the dark screen on his mobile until he realised it was the porterage calling on the hall phone.  
  
"Yes?" Draco dripped on the floor as he juggled a towel and the telephone, wishing the damn thing would respond to a summons like any sensible piece of magical furniture.   
  
Burrell, the porter, sniffed delicately. "There is a–" Draco could hear the reluctance to use the word "– _gentleman_  calling, my Lord Malfoy."  
  
Draco loved the Albany, he really did. As far as historic apartments in St James with permanent floo hookups and adequate plumbing went, there was none finer. It just got a bit tiresome feeling like he was in a Regency novel everytime someone came over for a drink.  
  
"Who is it?" Draco looked at the clock; it was past twelve. He accioed his robe and slipped it on with a frown.  
  
"A Mister Harry Potter for you, sir." A cough this time. "He is somewhat... indisposed."  
  
Draco could make out bleats of protestation from Harry in the background. "Send him up, then. Is he capable of finding his way?"  
  
"I believe the gentleman–" the porter's voice was cut off by Harry's slur. "Draaaaco. It's me."  
  
"Of course it's you." Draco pressed the lift code and hung up. 

 

*

  
  
Draco wrenched open the door, quite prepared to give Potter a bollocksing for turning up ratfaced on his doorstep on a Thursday night. The rain-soaked sight swaying damply in the hallway was utterly pathetic.  
  
"Good lord, that's even a rented tuxedo, isn't it?" Draco winced. Harry wouldn't be getting his deposit back on that. At least he hadn't stooped to Ming Campbell's level and hired Robbie William's suit-maker for the street cred.  
  
"Hi." Harry looked straight at him with the overly-focussed gaze of the alcoholically augmented. "Wanna come out?"  
  
"No, you fucking idiot, I do not." Draco pulled him in; Harry's wet shoes squeaked on the hardwood. It was bucketing down outside, being London in the springtime. "Even if it weren't midnight, it's revolting outside and you hardly look like you're capable of standing upright, let alone being charming company."  
  
"Hi," Harry said again, and wrapped his arms around Draco, hugging him with a little sigh.   
  
Draco stood very still. Harry's hair was wet-spiky and cold against Draco's cheek.   
  
"Alright," said Draco quietly.  
  
Harry let go and stumbled past Draco and into the reception room, mumbling something that sounded like "everyone wants charming." Draco followed. Harry shrugged off the sodden jacket and tossed it onto Draco's club chair, flailing about in the middle of the room before shoving his hands in his pockets. "There weren't any. Um. Any cabs." His glasses were fogged, sliding further down his nose as he sat down on the couch. "Aaaand. Couldn't apparate."  
  
Draco thought wistfully about his cooling bath. "Uh-huh. How much have you had to drink?"  
  
"Lots."   
  
"Anything else?" Draco had seen Harry snort coke right off Alex James's forearm; besides, even the Tory Leader admitted to a bit of recreational Class A use. If Boris's stories about the Bullingdon Club at Oxford were true, Cameron's entire future consisted of his scandalous Brideshead escapades being drip-fed to the public. Harry would do well to be more circumspect. At least when Draco indulged in pharmaceuticals he could blag them off as Dutch health supplements.   
  
Harry's head thunked on the back of the couch. "Possibly."  
  
Draco decided to press the point home. "Poor darling. You must be feeling dreadful."  
  
A tiny little groan, which Draco supposed was one of assent. That first moment with your eyes closed, sitting down: that was the killer.   
  
"Throw up on my rug and I'll extract your fingernails," Draco said, and went to put the kettle on.

 

*

  
  
"Where were you, then?" Draco was unaware of any parliamentary social events that'd been on that night, leastwise, not any dull enough to require the presence of an Opposition backbencher, and not any exciting enough that Harry wouldn't be noticed.  
  
"Fabian's Boat Party," Harry said, appearing to concentrate very intensely on holding his teacup. Draco hoped he would manage at least a few mouthfuls; he'd splashed in Goodwyfes Clarity but you could never trust a store-bought potion.  
  
"Fabian as in your mate Fabian with the silly name or Fabian as in–"  
  
"Young Labour thingy.  _You_  have a stupid name." Harry dropped his cup into the saucer with a clatter. "There's charms in this tea, tastes funny."  
  
Draco snickered. "What were you doing, infiltrating their ranks to suss out defectors?"   
  
"I was–never mind." Harry blinked at Draco before grinning, but it wasn't a smile that reached anywhere near his eyes. He looked down at the teacup then up at Draco. "I should, you know, go," Harry waved in the direction of the fireplace, "that works, right?"   
  
"Floo?" Draco frowned. "No. I really don't think I fancy explaining why your head is in Bermondsey and your feet are in Piccadilly to anyone, starting with the Ministers For  _and_  Of and working down to the gutter press."  
  
Harry scowled. "I. Am. Fine." He tripped on the rug as he stood up.   
  
"Sit," Draco summoned a wand from the mantelpiece. "Just sit. Don't move. Could you please attempt to remember what you partook of this evening besides alcohol, so we can return your motor skills to passable and, and I can go to bed?"  
  
"So bossy," Harry pouted.   
  
Draco rolled his eyes and cast something generic and anti-narcotic, only to have it batted back at him with a swipe of Harry's hand. The spell sunk into his lungs like overactive air-conditioning and for a brief second Draco knew with absolute clarity what he'd got wrong on the last problem set in his final Arithmancy test.  
  
"Don't touch me." Harry's voice was suddenly belligerent. "Said I was fine."  
  
Whatever thrill Draco felt at Harry's swift display of magic was cut short by a surge of irritation. "You're  _drunk_ ," Draco snapped, "and you're sulking a wet spot into my art deco upholstery–"  
  
"Penelope dumped me," Harry said, picking at a thread on one of the cushions.  
  
Draco sighed and picked up the teacups. "I'm sure Penelope was a lovely girl for all of the two weeks you've known her, but you just need to sleep–"  
  
"Five months."  
  
One of the saucers landed on Draco's bare foot. The ache was profound.  
  
"She said I was moody and difficult." The decorative button popped off in Harry's attempt to unravel the cushion.  
  
"You are," said Draco slowly. "I'm sorry, did you say months?"  
  
"Yeah." Harry sat forward with his head in his hands, damp hair obscuring most of his face apart from that scar that never faded. "I dunno. It just. Hurts a bit."  
  
"Good." Draco's wand trembled in his palm, and he didn't even have to think the stunning spell before Harry slid forward onto the floor, still as stone.

* * *

  
 **  
Rm. 128  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT (LORDS)  
Friday May 4th, 9:27 am**  
  
  
It was a very busy morning.  
  
That it was morning at all and the corridors were packed was singular; Lords kept ladies-hours as a general rule, and as a more specific rule Draco kept something he thought of as lunch-hours.   
  
The end of session brought about the usual scurry to pass through public Bills that everyone was tired of nitpicking and couldn't be bothered to think about over summer. It also created a trading-floor atmosphere of deals and brokerage regarding the fate of smaller bits of private legislation. The Written Answers Session dissolved into politely hysterical laughter when the Earl of Sandwich, in all seriousness, read out a statement regarding the position of Very Tall People as a public transport interest group.  
  
Right at this second Draco needed the folder on Azerbaijan which he had inconveniently left behind in his rush to leave that morning. More accurately, he'd left the folder in the flat, which he'd been in not so much a rush to leave as numbly furious at Harry fucking Potter and his five fucking month...  _Penelope_.   
  
And then furious at himself for being furious in the first place.  
  
He'd apparated to his quiet, leafy, conspicuously-lacking-Potter Wimbledon home, had a cup of chamomile, chased it with a very large glass of Norwegian brandy, and fallen asleep. He woke up at half-four from a dream where Harry and Margaret Thatcher were redecorating his bathroom, cursed his subconscious, and decided that even if the incapacitating hex had worn off, Harry was so trolleyed he was probably just snoring on the carpet.  
  
The point remained about the folder. Whether Harry remained also was a point whose accuracy Draco cared little about establishing in person, so he was sending Blaise. 

 

 

>   
>  GO 2 FLAT & PICK UP  
>  GRN FOLDER ON DESK  
>  AM IN SELCOM MTNG   
>  NEED PRESENTATN   
>  NOTES TX D

  
  
  
"Malfoy, isn't it?"  
  
Draco looked up from his mobile. "Sorry, what? Yes." It was the supermarket chap, Sainsbury. Draco had exchanged pleasantries with him a couple of times but found it awkward; he was a Waitrose man through and through on account of their Bakewell tarts. Baron Sainsbury was another who'd been questioned about his loan to the Labour Party. Draco hoped it didn't actually cost two million in donations to become a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.  
  
Tilting his head, Sainsbury frowned at the door. "You don't happen to know if this is the room for Welsh Affairs?"  
  
One imagined a strapping Pembrokeshire beauty named Morgan lurking the other side of the doorway. "No," Draco said blandly, "this is Human Rights. As such we don't deal with Wales."  
  
Sainsbury gave him the long look of one unsure if there was an acceptable joke being shared. "Right. Cheers, then."   
  
His phone beeped with Blaise's reply as Sainsbury strode off:

 

 

>   
>  IF I HAD A  
>  FORELOCK I'D  
>  BE TUGGING IT

  
  
The knot in his stomach eased a little. Nerves were acceptable: this was a crucial meeting. Draco had asserted a useful position in the select committee and didn't intend to let a little personal disorganisation throw him off his game at this stage.

 

*

  
  
"Here you are, m'lud."   
  
"Took your time," Draco whispered, flipping through the folder Blaise had procured. "Your dawdling might have impeded the progress of enlightened capitalism in the former Soviet republics. And I had to let Colville give his naff presentation first, the little upstart."  
  
Blaise gave him a half-smile, but he didn't mention Harry or indicate anything untoward. "You'll be fine. Let's have a drink later when your committee decides how to bring democracy to the marauding oil barons of Central Asia."  
  
Baroness Trumpington–a former Naval Intelligence girl at Bletchley Park who told gleeful espionage tales and did the Telegraph's Sudoku at top speed–appeared at the doorway with a piece of shortbread and the very same MP for Stourbridge fawning at her elbow. "You just about ready then, Draco?"  
  
"Absolutely, ma'am," Draco straightened his cuffs. "Thought-provoking piece there, Gerald. Hope I can follow on and do you justice."

* * *

  
 **  
THE ATHENAEUM CLUB  
PALL MALL  
9:22 pm  
**  
  
The braziers on the terrace gave off a comfortable heat, once the coals had stopped spitting sparks that endangered one's trousers. It wasn't yet summer; the humidity of the previous week had been dispelled by yesterday's rain and it was still cool in the evening.  
  
Draco recounted the Select Committee point-scoring he'd managed with his report on trafficking in Central Asia, but two glasses of chablis and a decent langoustine dinner and Blaise still had yet to mention a word about his trip back to Draco's flat. Perhaps there was nothing amiss when he'd got the papers; no vandalism, no enraged Potter hexing every item of furniture so it bit off Draco's bollocks next time he sat down. Stranger things had happened, so Draco just counted himself lucky and steered the conversation back to Blaise's book.  
  
"I thought I might have a chapter based on  _Wife Swap_ ," Blaise stretched back in his chair as the waiter cleared their table and replaced the wine.   
  
"What, have people swap parties?"  
  
"Don't you think it's a marvellous idea?"  
  
"Only for the clarity it would bring to the notion that there are no real differences between political manifestos." Draco stabbed a toothpick into the olive bowl and shifted his chair to face Blaise. "One only has to attend any cocktail function in SW1 to realise the only difference between Labour and Conservative is the amount spent on booze."  
  
"You're cultivating the cynical soundbite, I see."   
  
Draco snorted. It had been a very long day. "Says you."  
  
"Perhaps I might quote you," Blaise smirked, "as an anonymous Crossbench Peer, reformed Tory, Green Party wannabe, with close ties to the Lib Dem backbench." He leaned forward. "Interesting case study. You'd not be so much a wife-swap as a swingers party all by yourself."  
  
There was an edge to Blaise's tone that Draco really didn't care for, but he wasn't going to take the bait. "Whatever helps you sell copy." He refilled the glasses.   
  
"Of course, what the rest of the world doesn't know is that you're not a political dilettante at all."  
  
Draco looked about for eavesdroppers. "Blaise, what the fuck are you going on about?"  
  
"Is there a civil liberties committee that you are  _not_  an active member of? Granted, your approach is eclectic, but if one looks for a theme–"  
  
"I don't have a... theme!" Draco flicked an olive pip over the balcony rail emphatically.   
  
Blaise raised his eyebrows. "I, contrary to both expectations and promises, find myself now doing significant administrative work on your behalf–"  
  
"Yes, I think that's what you'll find a secretary's job description covers–"  
  
"Shut up. And compared to last year, when you had just one meeting a fortnight, which I remember primarily because of the trauma involved in choosing a judiciously moderate colour for your tie, compared to then? You have become a positive workaholic."  
  
"I'm a little busier," Draco conceded. "But you said yourself that the life of the idle rich loses its charm after the first decade."  
  
"Don't get me wrong–cheesecake? Thanks, no–" Blaise waved away the waiter hovering with a dessert menu, "–I've no problem with your latent vocational passion. I'd just assumed you'd rather not lose your credibility as an aristocratic  _naif_  in the process."  
  
It was always white wine that made Blaise enamoured of his own vocabulary. Draco poured the last of the bottle into his own glass and frowned.   
  
"Disguise," Blaise explained. "Plausible deniability and all that."  
  
"Oh, I fully intend to blame any scandal on my staff," Draco said, trying not to think about the discomforting situation of Lord Levy and the complete confusion he had about his own particulars. "Or perhaps follow Lord Lucan's example. Minus the homicide, of course."  
  
Blaise's tone was light, which was warning enough in itself, as he didn't take jokes about exile particularly well. "You might not want to leave incriminating evidence of either your actual competence or your hypothetical scandals lying about where Potter can see them, then."   
  
Fuck, here it was. Draco made a noncommittal noise and took a very large mouthful of his wine and started cataloguing to quell the panic. Gooseberry on the nose, almost a Sauvignon, chased immediately with a watery peach–  
  
"You do know he was in your flat this morning, don't you?"  
  
Draco let the glass clatter noisily on the table, splashing over his hand. "He what?"  
  
Blaise's mouth twisted as he glanced at the mess, but he didn't remark on Draco's charade. He laced his hands together and settled them back behind his head. "Yes."  
  
"I hope you threw him out?" Draco busied himself with an  _Extufare_  before the wine could drip onto his trousers.   
  
"Eventually, yes." Blaise–the bastard–paused until Draco looked up at him.   
  
"First I waited until he'd got himself off all over your sheets."  
  
"My–" A blush of heat ripped through him and made Draco's skin  _hurt_ ; he couldn't  _not_  imagine it, Harry laid out and breathless on his bed. Willing the image to linger, he closed his eyes for long seconds until he realised that Blaise had not just said that to titillate Draco's imagination. Draco swallowed, his mouth suddenly parched, and stared at Blaise. "What?"  
  
"Technically, I suppose your sheets are unsullied." Blaise slouched back in his chair, legs spread, wine glass dangling recklessly from two fingers, and stretched his neck to the side with an air of listlessness. Now, Draco thought, was not the time for Blaise to be flirting with him. Really not. Especially not in a shirt with that many buttons undone. "I have no idea about the rest of your personal belongings, though. He may have gone through your–"  
  
Leaning forward, Draco caught Blaise's wrist. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "Tell me what he was doing."   
  
"Come here." Blaise, speaking softly, let his hand fall open in Draco's grasp, and Draco's chair nudged at his knees, pushing him forward. "You want to know how he looked?"  
  
Blaise's voice was all mischief and uncomplicated, and Draco could ignore that, he absolutely could, if it wasn't for the fact that this was about Harry, and Blaise knew it, had no compunction exploiting it and enjoying Draco's reaction.  
  
"Let's see. He's tanned; his arms especially, they're tight with muscle. Must be all the–is it rowing that he does? I'm certain you've said." Blaise shook his hand free and stroked his thumb along Draco's forearm. "Just here."  
  
Draco wrenched his arm away, breathing out hard. "Blaise–"  
  
Blaise ignored him. "He was naked, too. This wasn't just some quick relief session. He was spending some quality time getting comfortable, I think, because your sheets were all rumpled."  
  
He hadn't made the bed the day before. Draco wasn't sure if that was better or worse.  
  
"He was. Sprawled," Blaise murmured, leaning forward, "on his back, with one heel on the footboard, and he was pressing his hand on the middle of his chest while he stroked himself."  
  
Oh, fuck. Draco could hear himself taking sharp inhales of breath, had to wet his lips, his mouth was so dry. His blood surged, pooling in his cock. His cock. Harry's– "His–"  
  
"You'll think it's perfect," Blaise brushed his fingers across Draco's mouth, sending furious shudders down his spine. "He likes to fuck his hand, too. Sharp little thrusts up into his fist, digging his fingers into his thigh. He was trying to hold back and make it last, biting down on his lip. I was standing in the doorway, and I could hear him making noises in his throat."  
  
The picture was so vivid, so mind-breakingly hot that Draco was lost in his own mind, imagining Harry's slick skin damp against his dark sheets, how his back might flex as he worked himself. Draco's arousal flared when Blaise skated his palm across his cheek, but he barely registered the movement until Blaise was right in front of him, shaking his head as he leaned over Draco.  
  
"Hopeless."  
  
But–Draco was doing a good impression of a guppy, gasping and swallowing, trying to comprehend what was going on. " _What?_ "  
  
"You want him so very badly," Blaise's tone was flat, curt. "You disappoint me. Where's your sense of entitlement, Draco?"  
  
Draco just blinked.   
  
"I lied, you idiot." Blaise stood up and brushed at his jacket. "Potter was nothing more than fully dressed and puzzling over your photo album when I found him."  
  
"Wait–" Draco heard the glasses rattle in a sympathetic echo of his own state of mind "–he was doing what?"  
  
"He said you'd hexed him something wicked."  
  
"He deserved it," Draco muttered, trying to shove the naked-Harry pictures out of his head and work out how to shove Blaise off the balcony without anyone noticing. His thoughts were still reeling; Blaise had strung him along so beautifully. "And you're a fucking wanker–"  
  
"It adds credibility to your jealous boyfriend act if you actually are the jealous boyfriend, all right?"  
  
Draco stood up, shaking with the remnants of arousal and his indignation. "For fuck's sake, Blaise, what do you care? You couldn't give a shit about Harry–"  
  
Blaise hugged him, suddenly, hard. "No, you twit, I give a shit about you. And it fucking kills me to intercede on his behalf, but you are unbearable and need to get laid." He tightened his grip, but Draco could hear his smile. "Just not by me."

 

*

  
  
Draco sat on the terrace for some time after Blaise had left, aiming his wand absently at the moths that headed for the porch-lamp. They were in for a scorching death anyhow; the spell just hastened it along.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was speaking easily, with inexplicable intimacy, with something like anger.
> 
> "I believe you want some of the things I do. The trouble with you, you like to sit above the battle. I don't know that I've got much use for that. I must say, I sometimes lose my respect for people who know as much as you do, and still don't come and fight it out."
> 
> He gave a comradely, savage grin, then broke out: "Anyway, just to begin with, don't you think you might treat me as a moral equal?"
> 
> This was my second surprise–so sharp, it seemed I hadn't heard right and simultaneously knew that I had. We looked at each other, and then away, as one does when words have burrowed to a new level, when they have started to mean something. There was a pause, but I was not premeditating. I said: "What do you want? What do you really want?"
> 
> [He] laughed, not loudly this time. "You must have learned a little from your observations, mustn't you?"
> 
> His body was heaved back in his chair, relaxed, but his eyes were bright, half with malice, half with empathy, making me take part.
> 
> –Corridors of Power, C.P. Snow  
> 

**  
THE LORDS CHAMBER  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT  
Unidentifiable mid-December 2006**  
  
  
This time the Vanishing Cabinet's portal was behind the Throne. Harry opened the door, squeezing by Draco's side and announcing, "Next stop," –and got a faceful of tapestry.  
  
"PTAHH."   
  
Draco hauled him back. "Please don't vandalise the Cloth of State."   
  
"How was I to know there'd be a bloody great carpet in my face? Yuck." Harry screwed up his nose. "All I can taste is mothballs."  
  
"Charming," said Draco.   
  
Harry kissed him.  
  
It wasn't the first time. That was years ago, in a cab back from the Guildhall where they'd met Mayor Livingstone, a casual piece of detective work on Draco's part because Harry had been _looking_  at him over dinner and no-one that universally flirtatious could be exclusively straight. The cab stopped for Harry on the Shad Thames and Draco had leaned in, touching his lips to Harry's, and Harry's hand had rested on the back of Draco's neck for a long, sweet second before the cab driver said "Nine pounds twenty, mate."   
  
Now Harry kissed him hard, open-mouthed, and he really did taste of mothballs. Revolting.  
  
"Thank you so much for sharing," Draco pushed Harry back. "Take any more liberties and I'll jam this–" He shoved the tip of the rapier into the knot of Harry's tie, "–where it hurts."  
  
Harry smiled innocently.  
  
" _Gustamente_ ," Draco grumbled. The foul taste disappeared. So did Harry, slipping behind the tapestry into the Lord's, leaving Draco to bite his lip on the dilatory ghost of the kiss, suspecting he had missed something very important, before he followed.  
  
In the Chamber, Harry craned his neck up, rolling his shoulders like he was trying to get comfortable in an ill-fitting suit. "Bloody hell." He took off his glasses and squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing at them. "Bit sparkly in here, isn't it?"  
  
It was a little more decorative than the Commons, Draco would agree, but then your average airport was more aesthetically pleasing than the MPs' chamber. "What would you like to know?"  
  
Harry had ambled over to the seats where the Lords Spiritual sat.   
  
"Ah, you don't want to sit there," Draco warned–too late, as Harry recoiled from the oily fug of Bishopry that lurked about the clergy benches.   
  
Harry scowled. "Not really enjoying my visit so far."   
  
"That's because you're common."  
  
His glasses back on, Harry looked over them down at Draco. "Oh, how many  _years_  have you been waiting to use that one?"   
  
Draco smiled and dropped down onto the Woolsack. "A few."  
  
"Where do you sit?"  
  
Draco waved at the space in front of the doors. "The benches that cross the chamber. Ergo, the Crossbench."  
  
"Who do you sit with?" Harry's tone–impossibly–brought back memories of his parents enquiring after Draco's term at school. That was just wrong.  
  
"It's Parliament, Potter, not Potions."   
  
Harry snorted. "Debatable."  
  
"Whichever of the Baronesses has taken a shine to me that week," Draco flicked his hair back. "So yes. Perhaps you are right. But it's always been an unbeatable strategy; I know all the intrigues."   
  
"I just read Guido Fawkes."  
  
"How unsurprising that you consider a libertarian blogger to be a reliable source," Draco snorted, but he didn't pursue it. Everyone read that website. It was like Perez Hilton for Westminster. Leaned back on his elbows–the cushion was so squishy, why had he never come in here for a kip?–Draco watched as Harry made his way about the chamber, rubbing his palm over the carved animals in the wooden balustrades and muttering.   
  
"They don't talk back," Draco called out, "at least, not for me." That was the problem with spending years in a place like Hogwarts: you expected anything with a face, no matter how inanimate, to be able to hold a conversation.  
  
"Me neither," Harry said glumly, which pleased Draco to hear.   
  
Harry stopped. "There's a dead spot here."  
  
"What?" Draco craned his head around. It was amusing him to track Harry's reactions, his small frown and tense shoulders; he was obviously having the same discomfiting response to the Lords that Draco had to the Commons.   
  
Harry moved to the right, paused, and moved back to the left. "Just here."  
  
"Oh," said Draco, "that's where the Law Lords sit."  


 

*

  
  
"Bit too ornate for me," Harry said, slumping down next to Draco. His eyelids were heavy, blinking slowly. "But this is comfy."  
  
"I might have thought our colour scheme to have been just your style."   
  
"Well, ditto. But reverse. You know."  
  
Draco made a face and stretched. "For the record, I actually have a colour dislike of the profound green. Thing." He thunked his head down; the parts of him that were decidedly interested in Harry's proximity and the ebbing lull of Christmas cheer were not clamouring as loudly as the parts that wanted to sleep. "Suits you, though."  
  
"Are we talking fashion or–" Harry's yawn was contagious, but Draco was pleased to see it, "–or politics?  
  
Draco fumbled at his watch. "It's nearly–good god–four in the morning, I think you overestimate my powers of metaphor."   
  
Harry laughed and got to his feet. "I overestimate your staying power, lightweight."  
  
Bleary, Draco sat up. "I'm an old man of thirty. Take pity."  
  
"As if." Harry picked up the sword from the floor and turned it over in his hands, whistling low. "This is–" he broke off, looking frankly at Draco. "This is really pretty. No wonder you're half-asleep."  
  
Something in the way Harry appraised his effort made Draco momentarily irritated. He snatched it back. "Yes, well, some of us have to work for our achievements."  
  
Harry pressed his lips together to trap some sort of smile and raised his eyes to the ceiling, like that was supposed to make a point.  
  
"Thanks for the, uh, glimpse of hereditary privilege," he said. "Get some sleep, Draco."  
  
Draco squinted at the spot Harry had apparated from. Contrary prat.   
  


* * *

  
**  
OFFICE OF THE MINISTER FOR MAGIC  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT (COMMONS)  
Thursday 10th May, 11:21 am**  
  
  
"Everyone thinks I'm Zac bloody Goldsmith!" Draco tossed the book on Boris's desk. "I have had three people–today!–asking me all about Hugh and Jemima!"  
  
"Yes, well, there are certain similarities of background." Boris–alternately pointing his wand at and fiddling with the buttons on the television–was not taking Draco's concerns seriously; he wasn't fazed at all by his own sister publishing a find-and-replace expose of the Kensington set. Squib bitch.  
  
"Please. I would never marry someone called Sheherazade. He bothers me, Boris. Can't you buy up his dreary save-the-planet periodical and make it into a Sunday supplement for your rag? Don't you have underworld connections?"  
  
"Calm down, there's a chap." Boris looked up from his anchovy toast–somehow he had the head of catering, Mr Bibbiani, on 24 hour call–and tapped on the back of the book. "My dear sibling did badmouth that Freyberg boy for you."  
  
True. "Valerian," Draco made a face. "Makes sense it's an ingredient in emetic potions, don't you think?" Draco had harboured the pleasant notion that he was actually the youngest sitting Lord in the House until the 3rd Baron Freyberg had come back from what was basically a gap year in China.  
  
Boris slapped the side of the television set. "Stupid sodding–where's my wand?  _Acclarobeebus_. Didn't know you were chummy with Seb Coe, though. I take it that was you two at tennis, throwing strawberries from the box?"   
  
"Yeah, he's a friend."   
  
"Not a bad move, having friends who head the Olympic Commission."  
  
"Never crossed my mind," Draco grinned. "Not really the sporting type–oh, look, finally." Onscreen, Tony Blair strode around a suburban carpark, shaking hands and waving, before the cameras followed him inside a village hall.  
  
"So, let me get this correct," Draco grimaced after Blair had left the podium to cheers and applause. "He announced in September that he'd announce within a year that he'd leave, and now he's announced that he'll leave in six bloody weeks, and that lot are happy clappy because they're going to get the dourest Scot in all dourdom as their fearless leader?"  
  
Boris scrabbled a hand through his startled-duckling hair. "It'll be the pensioner, the prat, and the po-face Protestant in the Commons, sad to say."  
  
"Your own party leader," Draco tutted. "Did you just call David Cameron a prat?"  
  
"Like the Greeks, boy. Like the Greeks. Allegiance to ideas, but no man. Like you and Potter, eh?"  
  
For all that it stung the remark seemed to be a throwaway bluster, but Draco eyed Boris skeptically. "You might say that; I couldn't possibly comment."  
  


* * *

  
  
An unsent email (one of many):  
  
  
 **Subject: [Saved Draft] (no subject)  
From: The Office of Lord Malfoy  <malfoy.d@hol.gov.uk>  
Date: Monday 21st May 02:39  
To: Harry <hpotter@libdem.gov.uk>**  
  
Harry,  
  
  
\--  


* * *

  
**  
THE DORCHESTER  
PARK LANE, W1  
Sunday 27th May, 4:14 pm**  
  
  
"Everyone?"  
  
"Everyone." Blaise pushed a memo over the table between the scones. For once, Draco hadn't the appetite for clotted cream. "All three major parties, plus the Greens, the Scottish parties, Sinn Fein and–what are you  _like_ –Plaid Cymru?"  
  
Draco was momentarily distracted by Blaise's ability to pronounce Welsh. He hadn't heard such a lilt since his nursemaid Laurie was sent off by an irate Narcissa; presumably he'd inherited his father's predilection for a pretty... accent.  
  
He brightened. "So that's good!" He glanced up at Blaise, who was eyeing up the hotel lobby, convinced the Beckhams were staying here. "Right?"  
  
"Possibly," Blaise returned his attention back to their afternoon tea. "Depends on your perspective. Either Lord Malfoy was allowed to claim his Viscountcy, enter the Lords on a technicality and then generously and indiscriminately donated across the political spectrum. Or you entered the Lords  _because_  of said indiscriminate donations." He surveyed the sandwiches. "Not such a wise idea to do it all on the same day, in retrospect."  
  
Draco lounged back in his chair. "But I have no cause to anticipate calls from the Metropolitan Police at six in the morning?"   
  
"I doubt it," Blaise said. "At least not as regards this. You might want to cut back on the gangland rentboys."  
  
Draco blew across the top of his Assam. "That was just the one time. You know I don't really share your enthusiasm for fucking random Muggles–ooh."  
  
They both peered over at the reception desk, where the former England captain was signing an autograph. "Except that one?"  
  
"Except that one."   
  
"Hmm." Blaise folded his fingers together across his stomach as he leaned back again. "Speaking of Potter, I take it by your availability on a Sunday afternoon–"  
  
"We weren't speaking–"  
  
"Oh, but look, now we are. So as I was saying, you're clearly not shagging your way together around the European mini-break hotspots, which means you haven't taken my advice and offered to demonstrate your unparalleled enthusiasm for giving–"  
  
" _–If you don't mind_ ," Draco glared, "I will attend to the details of my personal life in my own time and in my own fashion. "  
  
"Oh, just get on with it." Blaise made a great show of stretching in the chair and hooking his arms over the back. "Bad enough I should become the secretarial cliche and take an interest. Now we've established your financial idiocy was completely non-partisan, the least you could do is provide the House clerks with some hardcore gossip."  


* * *

  
**  
THE PEERS LOBBY  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT  
Friday 8th June, 6:20 pm**  
  
"–and in addition to my duties in the House, I'll have further such meetings later today. So no, thank you." Draco smiled pleasantly at the lackey from the Foreign Office who was lamely trying to recruit for an Inter-Party Parliamentary Interest Group on Angola. Africa was over once the indie musicians had started wearing their little rubber bracelets. Draco was all about South America now.  
  
There was an elderly chuckle behind him.  
  
"I understand that you're representing the sporting honour of the Upper House later today, young man." Peering over his half-moon specs, Lord Naseby slapped him on the back. "Won the trophy once myself, back in my day in the Commons. Wasn't called the Annie then, of course. Wasn't such a thing as Crossbench, either."  
  
Draco smiled politely and let Naseby reminisce on to himself until it clicked. Fuck. All this distraction with Potter and he'd completely forgotten about the pool tournament.   
  
"Misspent youth, then?" Naseby, his bowtie bobbing gently, was asking where he'd learned to play.  
  
"Absolutely squandered," Draco nodded.   


* * *

  
**  
ANNIE'S BAR  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT  
7:36 pm**  
  
  
"Here you are, sir." The barman pushed Draco's Guinness across the counter and nodded. "Good luck with it."  
  
"Cheers." He downed a few mouthfuls and went through to the billiards room. Three of the other quarter-finals were already underway; Draco noted with some relief that Shahid Malik, who most people thought should quit politics and go professional, wasn't to be his opponent. He was already obliterating some poor flunky from the Home Office.  
  
Draco didn't see anyone he knew in the knot of people around the table until Ed Balls–a Labour member tipped to be on the frontbench when Brown took over and who ate all the Jaffa Cakes at Ways and Means committee meetings–turned around and nodded in greeting.   
  
"Sorry, long queue at the bar." Draco sat his beer down on a side-table, gave his jacket to the porter, and started to turn his cuffs over, half-listening to the conversation.   
  
"–it's a good point, we should get the whips onto it–"  
  
"–appalling that there's no portfolio." That was Balls: big booming voice to go with his name.  
  
"–there's a position outside Cabinet under Education, but nothing specifically for child welfare–oh, there you are."  
  
Draco turned his head at that voice.  
  
"Needed to steady your nerves, did you?" Harry– _Harry_ –was perched on the edge of the table, rolling the white ball back and forth with an insouciant flick of his wrist, his head inclined at Draco's beer.   
  
Potter was the absolute last person Draco either expected or wanted to see right now. It had been a couple of weeks since the Incident, but that had been scarcely enough for Draco to look at his headboard without thinking of Harry's knuckles gripping it, let alone dispel the rest of the mindfuck Blaise had pulled.   
  
Discreet enquiries had revealed this Penelope chit to be the horsey type of Dorset gal with two labradors in her LandRover, the sort who wrote a 'Country Diary' for  _The Face_  in between skiing in Finland and raves in Dubrovnik. Not a sniff of magic about her, which might account for her finishing with Potter if there was need of any other reason besides his gigantic ego.   
  
And yet. No small black Pottercloud had appeared in Draco's office, huffy with indignation; there were no rancourous emails or an ill-tempered Hedwig, so Draco had to assume that Harry was so laced up that night he'd forgotten he was hexed.   
  
It didn't allay the apprehension that churned up a small corner of Draco's stomach as Harry watched him. Under the disorienting table downlights his face was only half visible, his expression ambiguous. Draco felt his own tighten in response.  
  
"How sweet of you to come along, Potter." It came out sharper than Draco expected. "I don't necessarily need the moral support but it will be so nice to have someone to keep the drinks coming." Draco brushed past Harry and instead turned his attention to the cue rack, picking out one with a heavier wrap so he could take a few really solid shots and blow out the cobwebs. He hefted out the cue and glanced up at the players' blackboard, where his own name was paired with– "Oh, fuck off."  
  
"Pete came down with a nasty case of salmonella, poor bloke." Harry pushed off from the table and scooped his hair back. Perhaps he was the picture of concern for the benefit of colleagues, but Draco was wise to Harry's previous involvement in convenient food poisoning cases of fellow Liberal Democrats. "Called me earlier and asked me to step in rather than just give you a free pass. I told him I wasn't exactly Jimmy White–"  
  
"That's snooker." Draco eyed Harry suspiciously. All that time with the Weasleys and no clue about pool? He was unconvinced. Harry was surely just out for a little tawdry revenge.   
  
"See?" Harry grinned at the few bystanders in what Draco understood was meant to be interpreted as a self-deprecating fashion. "I'm just here to put up a bit of token resistance."  
  
Draco shrugged and raised his eyebrows. "If you feel up for the humiliation. By all means."  


 

*

  
  
Harry started the first frame with a piss-poor break. Draco watched his stance carefully and decided Harry was not  _acting_  incompetent. He just... was. No forethought beyond the immediate shot, and no economy of movement–save beyond his usual annoying dexterity. It begged the question why he was here, but Draco was tired with Potter-shaped conundrums. It would be something blunt and obvious, no doubt.  
  
Draco relaxed a little and concentrated on setting up his own shots, calling a ball in succession in each of the corner pockets. He missed the fifth on the side with too much topspin and frowned at the baize.   
  
He looked up to see Harry leaning on his cue, watching seriously. "You're good."  
  
"Your standards are questionable," Draco lifted his glass towards the table. "Have at."  
  
He'd left two easy setups for yellow on the table, and Draco was relieved despite himself when Harry sunk one of them. A complete lack of competition would have been tedious. Draco stepped up again and pocketed two more, leaving a final red and the black at opposite ends for his last turn. He drained down his Guinness, felt himself smile over the top of the glass. He liked playing pool. There was something infinitely relaxing about the ceramic click of billiard balls and the wax and wane of triumph.  
  
"Where'd you learn?" Harry came around to survey the table, hooking the cue over his shoulders. The gesture left no doubt in Draco's mind that Harry was a novice. But the question? Draco looked at him disbelievingly: the Slytherin common room had gone through three tables with overuse, not counting the one that Greg and Millicent broke in other pursuits, and it was hard to believe that the other houses hadn't been similarly outfitted.  
  
"School, of course," he replied, chalking up his cue. He added quietly, "The pockets move about and the table changes shape. Much more difficult."   
  
"Ah," said Harry. "I didn't know that about you. But then, I suppose, I didn't  _ask_." He raised an eyebrow at Draco, holding his gaze with a tight smile. The air was heavy even when Draco broke eye-contact to nod at the table.  
  
"Yours."   
  
The unobstructed side-shot eluded Harry, and he turned back from the table with a small shrug. Draco unclenched his grip from around his cue and stretched out his fingers. The distraction of being watched was nothing much compared to the prickly flush of realisation that Harry, perhaps, had a point.   
  
He chalked the cue again, considering all the angles.  
  
This was, however, a simple sort of sport, so Draco pocketed the final two with loud, satisfying  _thunks_.  
  
"Malfoy, first of three," the porter announced. A bar flunky came over with a tray of champagne flutes, but Draco waved her off. Half of a million pounds worth of wine in the Government Hospitality cellars, and they still tried to flog off antipodean fizzy in the bar. Disgraceful.  


 

*

  
  
Draco made the next break and thought he might run out the frame until his fifth ball trickled to a stop an inch from the pocket. He looked up at Harry and glared.   
  
"Shame," Harry said, lining up to bank off the top rail. It  _looked_  like the shots were pocketed properly, but only because the Muggles in the room couldn't see the air ripple where Harry was using the cue as a bloody great wand.  
  
"Spare me," Draco muttered. He was above Potter's shenanigans, honestly. They played back and forth, Draco sinking a ball and curiously–to the onlookers–missing the next, Harry blatantly cheating and following his score.  
  
Three balls left on the table, and Harry clapped him on the back. "Don't worry," he said, pocketing the black, "I'm sure it's just a minor setback."  


 

*

  
  
Up at the bar, Draco tapped his fingers on the counter, contemplating migraine seizures for Harry and a Bloody Mary for himself.  
  
"You forfeiting, Malfoy?" Harry sauntered up. "Best of three, remember."  
  
"You're doing about as well as Cameron's A-List, Potter."  
  
"Thought you needed the competition," Harry blinked at him. Draco hated having his own words thrown back at him.  
  
Harry peered in the mirror behind the bar, ran his thumb across his jaw. "Bruised my face on your bloody coffee table. It's gone," he said conversationally, "which is good–for you–because I'd decided if it was still there when I saw you I was going to repay the favour."  
  
For a brief second Draco wondered if Harry was going to actually clock him one in front of all and sundry, parliamentary priviledge notwithstanding. But Harry went on:  
  
"Then I thought maybe that kind of tit-for-tat was getting a bit old."  
  
"You– _what_?" Confusion was always a good fallback. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you–"  
  
"Draco Malfoy," Harry shifted in close, his voice pitched low against the background hum. "You're fucking impossible, you know that? Four years of crazy flirting, and then you give me a concussion?"   
  
Draco spun his head around. No-one was watching them, which was just as well, as he had a horrible suspicion his cheeks were pink. "The head trauma wasn't, um, deliberate."  
  
"Dimwit," Harry looked up impatiently at the ceiling. "I was pretty sure we'd gotten beyond that phase of our relationship, you know."  
  
"Two Guinness, gentlemen."   
  
Drinking a mouthful gave Draco a moment to think, but the only useful thing he could come up with was that thinking, as pertained to Harry and himself, had perhaps declined in general utility.   
  
"Harry, I just–" Draco ran his hands back through his hair before he realised the gesture wasn't even his own. Fucker. "I'm sorry."   
  
Harry shook his head, brows drawn together in bemusement, looking intently at Draco as a smile broke out on his face. He brought his hand up, skimming the lightest of traces across the faint line across Draco's cheeks, one then the other. "You're still crap on your follow-through," he said softly, and picked up his drink, heading back to the table.  


 

*

  
  
Draco's concentration was pretty shot; Harry didn't use a jot of magic and the last game was still close. Between turns, Harry was carrying on the discussion that had been underway when Draco arrived. It seemed he was trying to motivate some kind of initiative for a Minister for Children in the next session. As far as Draco knew, Harry had nothing to do with child welfare beyond godfathering the next generation of Gryffindors, but maybe there was some sort of tiresome personal demon the Boy Hero had to work through via legislation.  
  
Talk turned to the recent edict that MPs were no longer allowed a sofa in their offices. Draco–who had stared appalled at the Estates and Facilities minion who'd shown him the room he was supposed to share with two other Peers of the Realm, then promptly converted a service cupboard into his corner office with the help of several enlargement charms–shared a conspiratorial glance with Harry. He knew damn well that Harry had done exactly the same thing.  
  
Balls was adding: "–apparently the village is approaching the population density of Dar-es-Salaam."  
  
"I hate the way people use the term Westminster Village as if it's some sort of gentle hamlet in the Cotswolds and not a ghetto of power-mad lunatics," Draco said, "Present company included, of course." He pocketed the black in the far corner with a decisive crack.  
  
"Two games to one, Malfoy," concluded the porter over a smattering of applause.   
  
The tension of their earlier exchange came flooding back to Draco as he leaned over to shake Harry's hand, but he managed: "Do you have plans, now?"  
  
Harry looked up at the parliamentary monitors before replying. "There's a division shortly."  
  
Right now, Draco hated democracy. "Ah."  
  
"It's." Harry screwed up his face a little. "Sorry, it's important."   
  
"Of course."  
  
Someone called: "–Potter, are you coming?"  
  
"Yup," Harry said, letting Draco's hand go.  


 

*

  
  
"Congratulations, Lord Malfoy," the porter said, handing him his suit jacket. "Through to the semi-finals."  
  
At least something went in his favour.   


 

*

  
  
Draco's footsteps clipped loudly on the marble of the Common's Lobby.  
  
"Potter!"  
  
Harry paused at the door of the Commons, knotting his tie as the Doorkeepers started to close up.  
  
"Quick," Harry said. "Gotta vote."  
  
Deepbreath. Deepbreath: "After?"  
  
"All yours," Harry smiled, and disappeared into the Chamber.  


* * *

  
**  
ST STEPHENS CLOISTERS  
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT  
10:11 pm**  
  
"Who goes home!"   
  
In the days when London was subject to pea-souper fogs, Draco supposed the evening cries of the police might have been helpful to cab-seeking, late-voting MPs, but on a summer evening whose only menace was the odd German tourist photographing Big Ben, the coppers just looked a bit embarrassed. He propped himself against the arch and watched the Palace empty of its inhabitants, streaming out to taxis and the tube, a few hardy souls clipping lights onto their bicycles and donning helmets.  
  
After twenty minutes spent rearranging various  _objet d'art_  in his office he'd decided fresh air was the thing and sent off a note to Harry by the House runners.  
  
Footsteps.   
  
"I do love defeating the government." Harry's head poked around the little alcove Draco had discovered.  
  
"That's something of a pasttime for you, isn't it?"  
  
Harry lounged against the wall next to Draco, his jacket unbuttoned and tie off again already. For someone so fucking gorgeous he always managed to make a suit look dishevelled. "Vanquishing evil, one early day motion at a time."  
  
This was–good. Familiar. Draco could trade snark with Harry for approximately ever. It went some way towards stupefying the flibbertigibbets in his stomach, too.  
  
"Vanquishing?"  
  
"I got a little further along in your thesaurus," Harry turned towards him, "it has been some time–"  
  
"– a long time, yes," Draco cut him off, certain there was some explicable reason for why he hadn't done this earlier, but equally certain that it could wait, and kissed him.  
  
Harry's mouth was pliant and slutty, opening hungrily as Draco pushed him back against the wall, and for the long moments of frantic snogging Draco felt nothing but warmth and pleasure and the overwhelming  _relief_  of being kissed back. Kissed back with purpose.   
  
Kissing, kissing, Draco hadn't kissed someone like this for years. It was insanely good.  
  
"Wait–" Harry pushed him back, straightening his glasses over heavy-lidded eyes as he glanced behind them into the passageway "–not here–Draco–"  
  
Draco's head was spinning, dopey with off-kilter kisses; daft things like where they were seemed such a minor concern, but he liked watching Harry's mouth move when he spoke. "Hmm?"  
  
"–people. Just around the corner." Harry's hands slipped over Draco's shoulders, threading into his hair, tugging. That felt very good, too. But there were little lines of concern above Harry's glasses. Hmm.  
  
 _People_. Crap. In the public eye, yes, if you peered over from the tube station.  
  
Draco shook his head. "Charm, charm, thingy charm." He drew a hasty obfuscation in the air around them, turned back to Harry and–where was he?  
  
"Harry?"  
  
"Here, you nob," Harry said, breaking Draco's sloppy charm and coming into view again, "you alright?"  
  
Draco stared at him.  _No_ , he thought,  _I just kissed you and it was so good I'm shaking like a fairy dust addict without a fix and I just screwed up a child's spell because I can't think straight and I kissed you in the fucking Houses of Parliament without so much as a closed door or a statute of secrecy to hide behind and I kissed you_. "Fine. You?"   
  
"Same," Harry said, with just a hint of a crack to his voice, and Draco felt a little better.  
  
"Want to–"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Oh, fuck," Draco said, and he loved a good suit, he really did, because the seams were well-stitched and held up to a thorough manhandling such as Exhibit A, Harry Potter, firm grasp on Draco's lapels and hot, impolite kisses that just went on and on. "Say yes again."  
  
"Yes–ngh, christ–" Harry's voice went up, "– _yes_."  
  
Indeed, thought Draco, shoving his thigh between Harry's legs a little further and grinning, I will not say no to that. At all. Hello.  
  
But there was still the location problem. "Office?"   
  
"No. No fucking way."  
  
Draco paused, drew back a little. Stubbornness narrowed Harry's gaze.  
  
"Come Monday we can do every broom cupboard of this bloody building," Harry's voice was rough, and that made the flibbertigibbets in Draco's stomach do an entirely different kind of nervous canasta, and the heat in his groin was more urgent. "But right now I want to fuck you, and then you'll need some sleep, because in the morning I'll want to fuck you again, and I don't fancy the couch in your office is that comfortable."  
  
He paused. "Draco?"  
  
Draco swallowed. "Who says you get to–"  
  
"You do. Later is negotiable."  
  
"But I don't" just would not make it past the thought stage into actual spoken words. Draco, in subsequent rationalisations, put that down to the resolute certainty of Harry's expression which said  _because I wish it to be so and you won't stand a chance_ , and Draco was never very good at withstanding that sort of implacability, and if he was going to do something profoundly reckless like have sex with Potter, why not go the whole jolly hog and set it up for maximum emotional disaster?  
  
"You'll owe me, you have no idea."  
  
Harry shrugged, crooked up the side of his mouth into a saucy invitation. "I like pretty much everything."  
  
"I'm particular," Draco said, "I'm sure you're surprised."  
  
"I think you're probably a bit repressed."  
  
Draco kissed him for that, digging his fingers into the soft spots at the base of Harry's neck. "Were we leaving?"  
  
"This is where you say 'Back to mine,' I think." Harry pulled him into the far corner of the alcove, pressing kisses along his jawline. The marble against Draco's back was still warm from the day, but Draco shivered a little. This would not do.  
  
"One of the reasons I don't–" Draco swallowed. Harry was working at Draco's tie. With his teeth. "–like you is because you invade people's space without invitation."  
  
"You kissed  _me_ , Draco."  
  
"You're also a bit dim."  
  
Harry snorted. "Leave it out. You'll like it better on your turf. And you can throw me out."  
  
It was a point, and the ache in Draco's chest was not getting any better with all this palavering about, and he'd stopped even thinking about the ache down below, probably because all the blood available for his brain was still cliche, yes, down below. "Fine," he sighed. He tugged Harry's head up. His thick locks of black hair were a proprietary sight between Draco's fingers, and for a moment Draco wondered what the fuck he'd agreed to, and then Harry  _bit_  him on the earlobe and sucked hard and all equivocation became like last week's news, and he yelped:  
  
"Apparating?"   
  
Harry tipped back his head and scrunched up his chin, flickering mischief. "Nah, lets take a taxi."   
  
"Come again?"   
  
"You don't like the idea? Bit of a thrill in the dark–"  
  
"Buh-ya-mm–" Draco couldn't decide how to start his sentence. "... _magic_ ," was what he spluttered, hoping it conveyed something like: as much as I'd like to get my hand on your cock in the back of a black cab let's save the exhibitionism for the future and please can we apparate right. fucking. NOW.   
  
Bollocks, he must have said the last bit outloud, because Harry's grin went all twitchy and smug:  
  
"Impatient, are we?"  
  
Cheeky fucker. Draco couldn't wait to wipe the arrogant smirk off Harry's face.   
  
"On occasion, yes. Where did this nasty streak of self-control come from?"  
  
Harry leaned a little harder into him, which was a big yes, everywhere. Draco hadn't thought to move his gaze away from Harry's mouth: smart decision, on reflection, because Harry licked just under his top teeth and grinned, and Draco thought–ridiculously– _but we banned fox-hunting, didn't we?_  
  
"Self-control? I had a brief career as a contract-killer for the state, remember?–ohhh. You  _like_  that, your face, Draco, you've–"  
  
"Nothing," Draco bit down on his tongue, suddenly aware he had no idea what his face was doing.  
  
"–too late, saw it," Harry said, and shoved his hand between them, heel of his hand straight onto Draco's cock and pressed, and moved, and  _squeezed_ , and Draco went stupid at the knees with that sort of of direct handling at the best of times and now? Was not Draco's finest hour with respect to composure, but at least he had the presence of mind to muffle the groan he couldn't help with Harry's shoulder.  
  
Firm shoulder. Muscles shifting. Draco wanted to bite down so badly.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, warm voice in his hair, "you like it and you're hard and you're  _close_ ," and Draco wanted more of that, wanted him to keep talking so he wasn't sure why he said:  
  
"shutup, shutup,"  
  
but Harry, Harry took no notice whatsoever and kept his lovely grip on Draco, wanking him firmly through his trousers. The wool gave fantastic friction but the buttons were fucking deadly and Draco was under no illusion that Harry wasn't aware of that fact. No illusion whatsoever.  
  
"Good?" Harry's stroking turned into fingertips, teased an outline of Draco's cock, lighter and lighter. "I'll get you off right now if you want."   
  
Draco breathed. Air in, air out.   
  
Harry shoved his whole body against Draco to murmur in his ear: "Make up for lost–"  
  
Concentrating, now. "So help me god, Potter, if you get splinched it's your own fucking fault–"  


 

*

  
  
"It's kindof hot that you can do that while you're getting a hand-job," Harry said when the apparition pop faded.   
  
"Impending climax. Focusses the mind," Draco panted, trying to regain his breath as well as he could with Harry wrapped deliciously around him. "Let me go and then bloody well finish what you started. Properly."  
  
Harry tightened his hold, one hand splayed through Draco's hair, the other restless on his rear, humid breath pooling at Draco's collar. "One or the other. I like it here."   
  
No fucking kidding, thought Draco, groaning at the pleasurable spasm when Harry's cock rubbed against his own. But... no. Dry-humping was not an option here. "Harry," Draco stumbled them against the back of the chesterfield, "I  _will_  throw you out in the street. Behave."  
  
Muttering, Harry unwound himself enough so Draco could actually move his arms.   
  
"Better." Draco's hands twitched between indecision and want. Possibly also from the urge to smack Harry across the mouth, which was pleasantly familiar and hadn't been irrevocably damaged by this whole kissing thing, so perhaps matters weren't dire just yet. The lights were slowly glowing as they registered Draco was in the room, showing Harry to have the kind of wanton colour in his cheeks that made Draco's pulse race.  
  
"Wait." Harry blinked and frowned, looking around. "Where's this?"  
  
"My house," Draco replied, composure regained enough to prioritise kissing the corner of Harry's mouth, "like you said."  
  
"This isn't–"  
  
"Less talking, more touching." In his lust-addled haze he'd apparated them to the sitting room, and now he was trying to steer Harry through the hallway without letting go of him.  
  
Harry stopped, held them still. "No, where are we?"   
  
"Hallway, en route to the bedroom. First right, flight of stairs, second left, your clothes on the floor–"   
  
"–It's different."  
  
For heavens sake. "Other house. Wimbledon."  
  
"But why have I never been here?" Harry demanded. The rest of his body was still, like he was ready to spring. Or explode. As gratifying as Harry's tantrums could be Draco did wish he could sometimes just pack it in for ten minutes. Five even.  
  
Draco tugged at him. "I invited you once. We only got as far as the pub."  
  
"Once." Harry regarded him closely.   
  
In Harry's glasses, Draco could see his own reflection, lit from the side by street illumination through the windows. That was too distracting: he slid them off into a pocket, but Harry continued:  
  
"Once in four years. What the fuck is up with that?"  
  
"A man's home is his sanctuary." He'd meant it to come out caustic but it merely sounded plaintive. "If I'd invited you in, I'd never have got rid of you."  
  
"That's just vampires–"  
  
"It's a personality type," Draco said, because he'd seen all variations on a Penelope and what they looked like afterwards, and if there was one thing Draco had honed to perfection it was the desperate art of self-preservation. It was just a shame about now.  
  
"I am not–"  
  
"Harry," Draco curled a palm around Harry's jaw, pressed his forefingers to Harry's mouth, "do shut up." Draco held his gaze, the both of them quiet, breathing quick and shallow.   
  
It felt like a very long time to be so close together, just looking. Draco's pulse seemed to become audible.   
  
Then Harry swallowed, and the muscles shifting in his throat made his skin terribly enticing, and Draco couldn't  _not_ : he angled Harry's face and kissed him, opening his mouth right over Harry's answering response, wet and urgent and fantastic.  
  
From there, the sequence of events in between the hallway and the bedroom was a little hazy.  


 

*

  
  
There was the undressing in the doorway, difficult because they were glued to each other:  
  
Draco pressed against Harry, seeking the taut friction of his body. "What do you like?" Kissed the smooth skin under his eyes, Harry's lashes flickering uncontrollably.  
  
"Your mouth," Harry tipped his head back, his hips forward, "don't stop, don't stop kissing me."  
  
Easy to oblige; Draco couldn't stop touching him, tasting him, the salty dip of his sternum, his hard and eager nipples through the soft cotton of his shirt. He kept missing with the unbuttoning charm and gave up, took Harry's shirt off with impatient, clumsy fingers. All the while, Harry didn't shut up; little noises, soft gasps, "there, yes, yes–"  
  
"Oh, you're beautiful," Draco ran his hands across the broad expanse of Harry's chest, sucked rosy bloodmarks down his sternum while he unbuckled Harry's trousers. Harry's breath was hitching, and Draco stood to kiss him, rubbing himself against the hard length of Harry's cock while he worked their trousers down, drinking it in as Harry bit his lip and moaned into Draco's mouth.  


 

*

  
  
There was, fuck, there was this:  
  
"Oh, fuck, fuck," Harry groaned, "so good, your mouth, it's just–" His hands clutched, agitated, at the back of Draco's shirt as he fought with the compulsion to let go and push inside. Draco felt of sharp rush of satisfaction; he knew how good he was at this, and the powerful contradiction–being on his knees but in complete control–never failed to thrill. He paused, waiting for Harry to settle, then scraped the flat of his tongue hard up against the underside of Harry's cock, humming with pleasure as that got him another groan. Good, Draco thought, coaxing Harry's hands up to grab the back of his head.   
  
"Yeah," Harry threaded his fingers through Draco's hair and smoothly pushed his hips forward like that was all he'd ever wanted, filling Draco's mouth to the back of his throat. Draco closed his eyes again and let Harry fuck his mouth, gorgeous length grazing along his tongue so perfectly that Draco couldn't help his throaty, coaxing noises, wanting Harry to push all the way inside, thrust himself into his mouth so Draco couldn't feel anything else.  
  
He grabbed Harry's hips and held him, taking him deep, sucking, his own prick fat and twitching with every noise he pulled from Harry, loving the breathy grunts and gasps he made when Draco used his tongue.  
  
"Close," Harry whined, "Draco–"  
  
"Mmm," Draco licked swipes around him, salty and hot, "Come then, come for me–"  
  
That made Harry jolt: "Stopstop–jesus–" he pushed at Draco's shoulders, reaching down to grab the base of his shiny cock, heaving in a breath, "–not. yet. Want to fuck you–"  
  
It was amazing how idealistically long-term Harry could be, even on the brink. Draco rose and wrapped his hand around Harry's own, interweaving their fingers. "Too late, Harry, just give it up," he murmured, tightening and pulling a long stroke that made Harry rise up on his toes and slam his head back against the wall, shuddering as he came in spurts all over their hands.   


 

*

  
  
There was Harry, post-orgasmic and laconic, showing off, snapping his fingers:  
  
"What are you  _doing_?" Draco's shirt tightened about him, buttoning, tucking; Harry straddled him, naked, dragging his teeth across his bottom lip with a slow grin.  
  
"I wanted to take your clothes off properly," Harry said, settling himself over Draco's lap just so, "since you won't be putting them on again for some time."  
  
"Oh," said Draco, because as much as the blithe assertion was Potterishly arrogant Draco had no problem with the general concept.   
  
Harry's hands were surprisingly small as he whispered quietly to buttons and cuffs; his deft gestures so near that Draco could feel the heat of his skin as the fabric did what Harry told it to do, rolling back and rustling away.   
  
It was like–no, he  _was_ –being slowly unwrapped. Harry's spells were overladen, leaving trails on Draco's skin humming with magic. The silk of Draco's tie was almost unbearable when Harry coaxed it in spirals around Draco's forearm, slipping like water between his fingers, and Draco couldn't help shivering.  
  
"Now what shall we do?" Harry spread his hands wide on Draco's chest, finally touching him properly, the spell residue like a warm embrace, heavy and encompassing.   
  
"You feel good," Harry said, "let me–" and Draco felt the shift in the air around them, felt an insistent, hot fluttering at the base of his neck.  
  
"Oh–" Draco stilled, realising what Harry was doing; willing the automatic bloom at the edges of his own magic to stop, he drew back in the eager strands that were furling out to meet Harry's. Stay, stay. "Not yet."  
  
Harry made a frustrated noise against Draco's neck. "Hmm, you really are repressed."   
  
"No," Draco breathed out slowly. "But you–you're the sort of person who eats pudding first."  
  
Harry smiled, and the fluttering subsided, but not before Draco's senses snagged on the displaced echoes of Harry's own; colours shifted off-spectrum, fuzzy edges, a faster heartbeat, all intoxicating, nameless shards of  _Harry_ , and they reeled him in, dizzy and out of control.  


 

*

  
  
There was this conversation:  
  
  
"Were you jealous?"  
  
"–No. Harry, come on."  
  
"You were jealous, that's why you cursed–"  
  
"I hexed you. More, come on–slowly."  
  
"Cursed, and one day I'll find out that curse and maybe I'll not report you to the Ministry."  
  
"It's not–it's not–Unforgiveable. Yes, there, there there–"  
  
"It should be."  
  
"You wouldn't. Again."  
  
"I might, you don't know."  
  
"I d-do know. I–I–Oh.  _Ohh–-_."  
  
"You're fucking gorgeous like this."  
  
"Don't stop. Keep your fingers–oh god, there. Course I was jealous."  
  
"Tell me why."  
  
"Don't stop."  
  
"I won't. Tell me why, Draco, and I'll suck you off."  
  
"Sweet fucking Merlin is it always this much–stop  _stopping_ –bargaining with you?"  
  
"Ever beg like this for anyone else?"  
  
"..."  
  
"Didn't think so."  


 

*

  
  
  
And finally, this:  
  
  
"Are you close, Draco, close?" Harry's eyes were so wide; Draco nodded, because he couldn't speak, he  _was_  close, and the edge was so tempting, so lush, and he wanted to keep fucking him forever–  
  
–and then Harry's hand on his cock was slick and manic, pumping him hard, no finesse–but, oh, pressure, friction; Draco arched and cried out when Harry slid off him and down the bed, grabbing Draco by the hips and engulfing him in his mouth, hot and sweet, sucking hard and screwing his fingers back into Draco's body. Too much, and Draco shuddered, spilling himself into Harry's mouth and tightening so hard around Harry's fingers he felt them twist inside him, sweet bursts of pleasure as he came.  


 

*

  
  
  
In the small hours:  
  
"Hmm?" Draco opened his eyes, sleep-fuzzy. Harry was opening the door. "Don't go."  
  
"Is the loo alright?"  
  
"Hmmm." Draco closed his eyes again, smiling. He drifted off until Harry shifted the covers, settling himself in, tucking his knees behind Draco's.  
  
"I'm not leaving," Harry kissed Draco's shoulder.  
  
"Good," Draco said.  
  


* * *

  
**  
LAMPTON HOUSE CLOSE  
WIMBLEDON, SW19  
Sunday, June 8th 11:42 am**  
  
  
"Want to have dinner at Granita?"   
  
"It's closed." Harry was standing at the kitchen bench, his hair curling wet on the edges of Draco's robe. Draco had had it made for him in Shanghai, but all the bespoke silk embroidery in the world had never looked so good until now. A small mountain of toast crusts was piled on the newspaper. "There's a good bar there now, although if you want to sit outside you're basically in a bus-stop–"  
  
Draco moved closer and kissed him. "It was–" Kissed him again, licking sweet marmalade from the corner of his mouth. "A figure of speech."   
  
"Bugger," Harry's frown dimpled into a slow smile, "thought you'd be too well-fucked to be clever this morning." He ran his hands down Draco's back, pulling them together.   
  
"You'll have to try harder. Mmm."  
  
"Spent all weekend trying–"  
  
"Spent being operative. That's quite a gift you have there, Mr Potter."  
  
Harry looked down, smirking. "Yes, yes it is."  
  
Draco laughed. "Actually, it's more like my gift." He took the last piece of toast from Harry's plate. "Happy Birthday to me."  
  


* * *

  
**  
ST STEPHEN'S TAVERN  
WESTMINSTER, SW1  
Monday, July 23rd 4:42 am**  
  
  
"–on the Woolsack?" Blaise's expression was halfway in between horrified and congratulatory.   
  
Draco fought to keep a straight face. "Rumour mill working overtime, I'm afraid." He fished in the packet for the last of the crisps. "And in the end, too dusty."  
  
"I can't believe I encouraged this," Blaise shook his head, but his little smile made it not entirely censorious.  
  
Outside, the weather was chucking it down relentlessly against the leaded windows. The House was overrun by smarmy environment know-it-alls with their climate change prophecies of doom. Draco thought if he heard the word emissions uttered one more time–outside a pornographic context–he was going to hex the hapless fool.   
  
Not that he was a global warming skeptic: quite the opposite. It was just patently obvious that the wettest British summer on record was Brian Haw's fuck you to the SOCPA legislation. He and his hippy mates in their tiny tent on Parliament Square had been–quite openly–constructing the mother of all rain charms for weeks. Draco had some sympathy for the man and his ongoing anti-war protest, but it was such a shame when talented wizards put themselves forward so openly.  
  
What with one thing and another–Blaise buggering off to the south of Spain, and Draco spending much of his free time indoors–they hadn't got around to reporting the whole affair to the Office of Meteorological Misadventure.  
  
On the television over the bar, the afternoon news cut to the sodden expanse of College Green, black cabs inching along Millbank in the downpour. Harry had spent an extra ten minutes that morning attempting to match a shirt and tie for the cameras–all for nothing, as everyone being interviewed was buttoned up in their macs, huddling under umbrellas.  
  
As it was, the new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families delivered most of the announcement, but it was quite refreshing to see the rumoured cross-party collaboration with the Lib Dems being announced to the media.   


 

*

  
  
"Heineken for me. Guinness for you." Harry pushed a fresh pint across the table to Draco, beads of water dripping off the ends of his hair.  
  
"No umbrella?" Blaise snickered, standing up. "I'll just be–"  
  
"Sit down, Zabini, I only have two hands and the barmaid can't find a cucumber for your bloody Pimms." Harry stripped off the sodden coat, dumped it over the back of the chair, and darted back to the bar.  
  
Draco bit back a laugh at Blaise's face. "Go on, stay."  
  
"Fine," said Blaise, dubiously, though Draco wasn't fooled. "I'll count this as a working lunch."  
  
Handing a glass to Blaise that was more fruit salad than actual liquid, Harry dropped one of the free London papers–the purple one–on the table. He tipped back a good third of the pint glass, and turned the paper over to the front. "Problem."   
  
"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Draco.  
  
"You are  _joking_  me," said Blaise, snatching up the paper.  
  
HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU, shouted the headline. Underneath: BORIS THROWS HIS HAT INTO MAYORALTY RACE.  
  
Draco considered the matter. "It's not really a problem," he said.  
  
"It's a fucking disaster," Harry spluttered, "he might win. The tube delays are bad enough without a Tory nob diverting funds into cycle lanes and Roman empire re-enactments."  
  
"Yes, he might win," Draco smiled into his Guinness, glancing up at Harry with a brief wink, "But then it occurs to me that there'll be a job opening."   
  
Harry looked over the table at him, and grinned.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a good couple of years to write this epilogue. Oh good intentions. Thank you to circe_tigana, who asked me "but how do Harry and Draco get together?" approximately one billion times, and who made sure I eventually told her. ♥


End file.
